My morning prayer has both palms raised
above the keys, and now I strike
a word, strike it out, start again,
and slowly sight my way. May hers
be aerial vision, preferring
the earth’s blue-green topography
to sun’s white citadels. May she
light down each evening. My fingers
play the little chapel game with her,
point skyward, then home to the human
multitude bowed down in prayer.
I’ve never flown in dreams or spirit-
quests, in sky that wasn’t sky. Earth-
bound, I’ve felt the weight of that sentence.
I look my talents in the eye
and claim them full of gravity.
May hers be buoyant, sparkling
in wit and spirit. May she lift
off early and stay aloft,
as she desires. Let the heart,
set in dust and clay, weigh what it
weighs. Let her hear, in my absence,
this psalm, whose singer, at last, will move
off the mudflats, toward open water.
May she read me as I read her,
from the other side of light.
May her readers accede to worlds
more dazzling than they could conceive.
May they be happy, and many.